Floyd Willard Goodman Jr., a lifelong athlete and rugged cowboy who enjoyed the rough and wild parts of rural America, died on June 9 at his ranch near Zephyr, Texas. He was 83.

His death was confirmed by his son, Bryan Goodman.

Mr. Goodman was well known by friends and family as a stellar athlete and extremely disciplined and exacting personality. He played nearly every sport at Central High School in what was then Helena, Ark., (now Helena-West Helena) and served as co-captain of the 1960 Central High School Indians football team. An exceptionally handsome man, Mr. Goodman was chosen by his classmates as the cutest boy in his class.

His athletic gifts won him a scholarship to play football at what was then Arkansas A&M (now the University of Arkansas at Monticello), making him the first person in his family to attend college, which provided him entrée to the middle class. He met his first wife, Suzie, a cheerleader at Arkansas A&M, and the couple soon welcomed their daughter Page into the world.

After college, Mr. Goodman returned to his hometown and taught science at Helena Central High School and Eliza Miller Junior High School. He educated some of the best and brightest in Helena-West Helena, including Blanche Lambert Lincoln who would become Arkansas's first female U.S. senator and powerful chairwoman on the Senate Agriculture Committee, and her sister Mary Lambert, a producer for Madona and Hollywood director.

Bryan Goodman, Mr. Goodman's son, says that it was his father's experience as an educator, along with his discipline, grit and toughness, that helped the son overcome a learning disability and become a successful student who has always loved learning.

"My father would sit at the kitchen table and grill me with questions before exams when I was growing up and wouldn't let me go to bed until I answered every question correctly," he said. "Then he would wake me up early and go over the questions again. It was like sitting with a drill sergeant, and I hated it at the time, but I internalized those habits and did incredibly well in college and graduate school as a result."

In 1974, after the sudden death of his father from a massive heart attack and a second divorce, Mr. Goodman went through a personal and existential crisis that was resolved when he made the decision to become a born-again Christian. His faith was his North Star and was incredibly important to him, and he enjoyed sharing the gospel with friends and family.

Mr. Goodman married Joanna Reinhardt in 1977, and she became the love of his life. The marriage lasted for 28 years until Ms. Goodman's death from ovarian cancer in 2005.

Born in a family farmhouse in Marianna, Ark., the son of Helen and Floyd Willard Goodman Sr., Mr. Goodman witnessed a rapidly changing America during his lifetime, including the fall of Jim Crow laws in his native South, the integration of public schools after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, the rise of Second Wave feminism and the hippy movement and the subsequent conservative backlash to those changes. When Mr. Goodman was born, the United States was highly religious and close to 90% White. The America he died in, by comparison, is far more diverse and secular.

But Mr. Goodman was a traditionalist at heart and always the product of a bygone era. He went from yelling at the television in his living room when he witnessed activists rallying for gay rights on television to hugging his son in his living room when he came out to him as a gay man. Mr. Goodman's son became a prominent and outspoken gay rights activist in Arkansas in the 1990s before moving to Washington, D.C., to work for a U.S. congressman. While he continued his relationship with his son, Mr. Goodman remained a man's man who struggled to accept the LGBTQ+ cause and when his son appeared on local news stations to advocate for gay rights, Mr. Goodman would simply flip the channel to a ball game rather than yell at the television.

Despite their difference, father and son could laugh together about family memories.

"I remember wanting to be a paper boy, when I was in seventh grade," the younger Mr. Goodman said. "But once I got assigned the route, I found that I hated the job, and I was scared because I was riding my bike early in the morning when it was dark out. So, I'd just throw newspapers at random homes so that I could go home. My dad found out about it after subscribers complained en masse. My dad drove me around the next morning so I'd feel safe and, while he didn't like quitters, he thankfully let me quit that job, and we laughed about it for years!"

Mr. Goodman's remains will be interred next to his wife at a cemetery in Quanah, Texas. In addition to his wife, Mr. Goodman was preceded in death by his sister Gail Goodman Staggs, a brother-in-law Tommy Staggs and parents Floyd Goodman Sr. and Helen Goodman.

He is survived by his daughter Page Goodman, of St. Petersburgh, Fla., a son Bryan Liddell Goodman of Washington, D.C., a stepson Jack Spurr of Knoxville, Tenn., two step-grandchildren, two nieces and a nephew. A small celebration of his life will be held in Arkansas over the coming months.